Shrubs - Ruellia - British

Favorites of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. These root hardy perennial shrubs are comprised of fast growing herbaceous vertical stems that hold dark green to bronze colored, long lance-shaped leaves. Violet-purple tubular blooms with a wide open corolla form on petioles near the top of every stem almost all year long. Best blooming and growth habit comes from plants in full sun. Roots are rhizomatous, so plants spread underground to create a rather large mass. Slower spreading in heavy dry soils as they are in moist well-conditioned soils. These Mexican native plants are extremely heat and drought tolerant. If stems are frosted to the ground, which is a possibility in cold temperatures, simply cut them all the way back and new shoots will quickly recover from the roots to produce blooming plants by that same spring/summer.

Scientific name:  Ruellia brittoniana

Mature size:  up to 3 ft. high x 2-4 ft. wide

Sun:  Full sun